


Caught Unprepared

by mad_martha



Series: The Lodger Series [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-03
Updated: 2011-07-03
Packaged: 2017-10-21 00:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/218620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mad_martha/pseuds/mad_martha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry deals with the way things are, not the way he wants them to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caught Unprepared

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a Lodger prequel, a story from 'the war' period, and deals with an incident briefly mentioned in The Lodger.

"The house is empty," Sirius Black muttered, disgusted.  "All this way for nothing!  What do you think, Remus?  A diversion?"

"We don't know that for certain," Remus Lupin replied mildly.  "We should make a search of the place, just in case."

"Fine, but I think it's a waste of time.  You and Oliver take the kitchens, and Harry and I can check the rest of this floor."

"No one goes upstairs alone," Lupin cautioned as he set off down the dark passage with Oliver Wood.

"Are you all right?" Sirius asked Harry in a lower voice, when his friend was out of earshot.  "You seem a bit off your game tonight."

"I'm fine."  No way was Harry about to admit to Sirius how much it had upset him seeing Ron with that girl.  Aside from anything else, he doubted his godfather would understand.

"Well, be careful.  I'll take the dining room and you check the library, okay?"

Harry nodded and they split up. 

The library was a big, dark room, lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves and with more racks down the centre of the room forming aisles.  There was a skylight in the ceiling allowing weak moonlight to pool in the middle of the floor and there were low tables and leather chairs over by the long window alcoves.  Suppressing a sigh, Harry began to check each aisle and alcove in turn.

Why did Ron have to go and do that at Phoenix Lodge of all places?  If he had to pick up these girls – this hadn't been the first time by a long shot – why couldn't he at least go back to their place or something?  Why did he have to bring them home where Harry or one of the other Order members would be sure to trip over them?

Maybe that was unfair to Ron, though.  Phoenix Lodge was the safest place to go, after all.  And it wasn't like he knew how Harry felt about him – or would even care if he did, Harry suspected.  But damn it, Ron ….

Moonlight was flooding through one of the long windows into the alcove he was approaching, surprisingly strong considering that it was three days short of the full moon.  And as Harry approached, someone straightened up in one of the button-upholstered, wing-backed chairs and stood up, turning to face him.

It was Ron.

Harry gaped at him, astonished.  "What the fuck are you doing here, you prat?"

"Looking for you," Ron said, and he smiled that sunny, happy smile that made Harry's joints go weak.  "I had to talk to you, Harry – straighten things out."

"What things?" Harry asked, perplexed.

The redhead took a step forward.  "Things between us.  Harry, you know those girls don't mean a thing to me, don't you?"

"What?"  Harry had trouble processing this.  Ron was supposed to be at headquarters, wasn't he?  So why was he here and saying – saying something Harry was desperate to hear?  But that was the important thing, wasn't it?  "What do you mean?" he asked.  "If they don't mean anything to you, why do you do it?"

At any other time he would have been embarrassed at the plaintive sound of his own voice, but right now it was more important than anything to hear Ron's response.

"They're just girls," Ron said gently, walking closer.  The patch of moonlight seemed to follow him, turning his face all to shining planes and shadows.  "They're not you.  Damn it, Harry, why didn't you say something to me before?  I never thought I had a chance with you."

"I didn't think you wanted me," Harry heard himself say feebly, as though from a great distance.

Ron's hand reached out to touch his face, warm and leeching all the power of reason out of Harry.  "Well, now you know different, don't you?"

Harry felt himself leaning back against the bookcase and Ron was following him, leaning in to kiss him.  His lips were soft and warm and Harry surrendered to something he had wanted so desperately since he was sixteen.  Ron's fingers were unbuttoning his shirt even as they kissed, fingertips skating lightly across his nipples and down his belly as his tongue gently explored Harry's mouth.  The touch skipped lower, moving to unbutton his jeans, and Harry gasped softly, clutching at his friend's upper arms, kneading the muscles restlessly.

He hadn't known Ron would be like this, would _want_ to be like this with him; if only he'd guessed he would have thrown caution to the wind long ago and made a move ….  A large warm hand slid into his underwear then, grasping Harry's straining erection and stroking it with amazing skill and confidence. 

Ron broke the kiss, resting his forehead against Harry's and smiling softly.  "You like that?" he whispered.

Harry hardly knew how to speak anymore.  He pushed himself pleadingly into his friend's hot palm.  _"Yes …."_

"You want more?"

"Oh God … yes … please …."

And then, incredibly, Ron's lips began to move down his neck to the hollow of his throat … down his chest, his tongue lapping delicately at each nipple in turn before continuing to blaze a hot-cold trail down Harry's belly.  Hands slid his jeans and underwear lower, grasped his hips gently, and before Harry could fully process what was happening, startling wet heat covered the head of his cock, making him cry out helplessly.

And just as it was all perfect, everything went to hell.

 _"HARRY!  Get away from him, you!"_

Harry was so lost in erotic sensation that he barely heard Oliver Wood's shout, but he registered the white-hot flash of light that lanced towards them.  There was an unholy shriek and when his eyes cleared the figure standing in front of him wasn't Ron at all, but something out of a nightmare with long spindly claws and fangs as long as his hand.  It shrieked again, one clawed hand still clutching at Harry's hip, and Oliver yelled another hex.  It struck the monster cleanly in the chest and blasted it apart.

Harry slid to the floor, his legs refusing to take his weight, and still unable to comprehend what had just happened.  Footsteps came running and Oliver crashed to his knees beside him.

"Harry!  Harry, are you all right?"

Warm hands grabbed his face surprisingly gently, turning him to look the other man in the face.  Oliver's eyes were frantic.  "Harry?"

"'M fine, Oliver," he mumbled.  He just had no strength left in his body.  What the hell had just happened?  "That … was Ron," he managed to whisper.

"You fucking idiot!  You stupid fucking dim-wit Sassenach!"  Oliver dragged Harry into his arms, and to Harry's distress he was almost weeping from combined relief and fright.  "It was a fucking succubus and you didn't even try to fight it – what were you _thinking_?  Weasley's a hundred miles away!  He's probably screwing one of his girls as we speak ….  How could you even _think_ he'd be here and wanting to make it with you?  In God's name, Harry, don't you know thoughts like that are what succubi latch onto?  It could have drained you of everything, your strength, your magic …."

"I'm sorry, Oliver," he whimpered, and suddenly the depression rose up in his chest, black and heavy as a rock.  "Sometimes it's just so – so hard …."

"You think I don't know that?"  But the tone was no longer accusatory, and the arms around him were gentle, rocking him.  "You silly, stupid bugger, of course I know …."

 

xXx

 

There was no hiding it, of course.  The consequences of a succubus attack - even an interrupted one - were too dramatic; Harry had to be shipped off to the Order's temporary infirmary at Grimmauld Place, where he spent the following morning in groggy despair, enduring Professor Snape's grudging treatment and waiting for the axe to fall.

It was too much to hope that Oliver could hold back the worst of the details.  All Harry could hope was that Ron wasn't present at the debriefing, for if his friend found out … well, making a single-handed assault on Voldemort might be the most merciful way to end his misery.

"I do hope you're feeling suitably foolish and humiliated," Snape told him at one point, standing over him as he swallowed a restorative potion distastefully.  "A _succubus_ , Potter!  How sordid and pathetic - "

"The only thing that's sordid and pathetic around here is you," a familiar voice said curtly.  Sirius was standing in the doorway of the dingy little two-bed room, glowering at Snape. 

"Then that makes three of us," Snape said coolly, capping the bottle he was holding and taking the empty tumbler back from Harry.  "You'll no doubt be overjoyed to discover that your godson will live, although it's more than he deserves considering that a minor application of the Occlumency I sweated blood to teach him would have spared him this."

"At least a succubus found something in Harry to attract it," Sirius retorted, his lip curling.  "They only go after creatures with feelings, which rather rules you out - wouldn't you say?"

"You presuppose that I care to be ranked among those weak enough to be the victims of lower grade demons," Snape returned contemptuously.  "There is little to be proud of in being a victim of any stamp, Black, but I daresay you wouldn't understand that."

"Funny," Sirius said, his eyes glittering, "but I'm not the one who has to ask "How high?" when Voldemort says "Jump!" and nor is Harry.  But you probably have another word for your relationship with him - "

"Can you two take this outside if you're going to keep it up?" Harry asked weakly from the bed.  "I'd like to collapse here, if it's not too much bother."

"Dumbledore wants to see you," Sirius told Snape, never taking his eyes from his face.  "As in - now and not when you feel like it."

"Rest assured, I do not linger here for my own amusement," the Potions Master shot back and he swept out of the door.

That left Sirius alone with Harry, a prospect Harry didn't cherish.  They looked at each other for a moment, then Sirius approached the bed almost cautiously.

"How are you feeling?"

Harry couldn't meet his eyes.  "Like shit, if you must know."  He hesitated, then added in a mumble, "I feel like the world's biggest berk."

There was a faint sigh.  "It was an accident, Harry.  It happens."

"It was an accident that could have got me killed and the rest of you as well," Harry retorted.  "I'm not stupid - I know if it had drained me completely, it would have been twice as strong and damn near impossible for the three of you to get rid of."

"Rather more than twice as strong, actually," Sirius replied dryly.  "You're hardly an average wizard - you would have made quite an invigorating meal for it."

Harry sagged back against the pillows and stared up at the ceiling.

"Is Dumbledore furious?" he asked.

"I think the word that best describes the overall mood is "concerned"," Sirius told him.  The side of the bed sagged a little as his godfather sat down beside him.  "Nobody's talking about how stupid you were, if that's what you're worried about.  Apart from Snape, of course, but he doesn't count."

"No," Harry replied grimly, ignoring the latter remark.  "That's not what I'm worried about, believe me."

"Ah."

There was a long silence.

Finally, Sirius said a little impatiently, "Are you going to say anything?"

"Such as?"  Harry shot him a tense look.  "Was Ron at the debrief?"

"No.  Oliver insisted on him being kept out of it."

"Was he even in the house?" Harry asked dully, but it was a rhetorical question.

"He won't hear about it," Sirius said after a moment.  "He'll have to be told something happened this evening, but he won't get the details and neither will anyone else who wasn't at the meeting.  So your secret's partially out, but it's still pretty safe."

Harry closed his eyes.  "It's still _out_ , Sirius.  I'm sure it'll be all over the Order like a rash by tomorrow.  Snape'll see to that, if no one else does."

"Snape only knows it was a succubus," Sirius told him patiently.  "Unless you told him differently.  In case you've forgotten, most succubi take a _female_ form."

Silence.

"I didn't want you to find out that way," Harry said finally, very quietly.  "Actually, I - I didn't want you to find out at all."

"You don't think I might have noticed if you and Ron suddenly started flipping the sheets together?" Sirius asked dryly.  "He's not exactly subtle, you know."

"I know.  Believe me, I know."  He picked at the blanket covering him and let out a slight, rather bitter laugh.  "I don't think you were in any danger of finding out, all the same.  Under the circumstances."

"I rather hoped you'd feel you could tell me things like that."

He sounded so disappointed; the tone Harry most dreaded hearing in his voice.

"It's not what everyone was hoping for from me, is it?"  His throat tightened.  "I'm sorry."

"Harry …."  Sirius reached out and squeezed his arm.  "I don't _expect_ anything from you.  I just want you to be happy … except that obviously you're not."

"Sometimes it happens that way, you know.  Sometimes you love someone and they don't love you back."  Harry told himself he wasn't going make things worse by snivelling in front of his godfather.  Bad enough that he'd let himself down in front of Oliver Wood.  "I'll probably live, most people do after all."

"Hey!"  Sirius's grip on his arm tightened.  "I know it's difficult, but Harry - you're only nineteen!  You'll be surprised how quickly things will seem different.  It's this bloody war - this is no life for young people to lead, cooped up inside safe houses, spending all your time listening to old men making plans and getting sent out on sneak attacks.  It's no wonder you latched on to Ron like that, you've spent the better part of ten years in each other's company.  There are few enough people you can trust and precious few girls of your age in the Order, after all.  It's perfectly normal to develop crushes on the most extraordinary people, you know, but when all this is over …."

He carried on in that vein for some time, but although Harry nodded and mumbled agreement in all the right places, he stopped listening.  He hadn't really expected Sirius to understand or accept that he was gay; Sirius, who had joked at his seventeenth birthday party that he was old enough to marry now and a responsible godparent had a duty to find him a suitable bride from a decent wizard family.  That had been a joke, but the private conversation later, when Sirius had told him quite earnestly that he looked forward to seeing Harry grow up and have a family of his own, had not been.

Sirius meant well and Harry felt no resentment towards him, but right now the last thing he needed to hear was that the misery he was going through was just a passing phase that would be chased away by some nice girl at an unspecified point in his future.  He already knew - had known for a long time - that it simply wasn't true.

 

xXx

 

He was kept at the infirmary for a day then sent back to Phoenix Lodge.  Sirius's house, which was the new headquarters building, was bustling with Order members who were preparing for some kind operation.  Under normal circumstances Harry would have been raging to know what was going on, but today he watched the activity apathetically from a seat at the kitchen table. 

Eventually most of them disappeared to wherever it was they were all going; almost the last to leave was Ron, who paused beside Harry's chair to gulp down a hasty mug of tea and tease his friend.

"Heard about your close encounter," he said, and he gave Harry a slow, wicked grin that was reminiscent of his twin brothers when they were up to mischief.  "Weren't you listening during that lecture in DADA, mate?  Next time, take care of any little problems _before_ you go out on a job, okay?"

"Ron."  Remus Lupin was standing in the kitchen doorway, watching them.  "Time to run."

Ron nodded and reached out, tousling Harry's hair in a friendly way, and Harry concentrated on not jerking away from the painfully welcome/unwelcome touch.  Ron slapped his mug down on the table and grabbed his cloak from the back of a chair. 

"See you when we get back, Harry!"

And he was gone.  Lupin hesitated, in spite of clearly being part of this expedition, and stepped into the kitchen.

"Harry?"

Harry didn't want to look up from his mug.  He didn't want to see the same look of mingled pity, affection and exasperation on Lupin's face as he'd seen on Sirius's the previous day.

"How are you feeling today?"

"Tired," he said to his tea.

"You will be for a couple of days.  Take it easy."  Still Lupin hesitated.  "You won't be alone in the house.  We're leaving someone behind, of course."

"You don't have to," Harry said, looking up unwillingly.  "It's not like anyone can find me here, after all, and I'm not going anywhere."

"It doesn't matter.  We're not leaving you on your own all day."

"Fine," Harry sighed.

Lupin reached out and touched his shoulder lightly, hesitantly.  "We'll have a chat when I get back, all right?  I know you talked to Sirius, but ….  Harry, it's not your fault."

Harry had to chew his lip for a moment or two before he could speak without humiliating himself yet again.

"Isn't it?" he asked finally.

But there was no reply and when he looked around, Lupin was already gone.

 

xXx

 

It was damp and unpleasant in the bushes Remus Lupin and Sirius Black were crouching in, and there was little sign of life from the building the Order was watching.  Lupin had a suspicion that it was going to be a long and unprofitable afternoon.  Unfortunately, that left him with plenty of time to think.

"Sirius," he murmured quietly.

"Hm?"

"Did you speak to Harry last night?"

"Of course."

Lupin glanced at him.  "What did you say?"

Sirius shrugged slightly.  "The usual."

"Which was?"

"Cheer up, worse things happen in Quidditch, you'll feel better in a day or two ….  What do you _think_ I said?  It's hardly as though it was his fault and before you ask, yes, I did tell him that too."

"I've wondered why he's been so down lately," Lupin ventured cautiously.  "It certainly explains a lot."

"He's a teenager.  They're up and down like a wonky Snitch - _we_ were up and down when we were his age.  He'll convince himself he'll never be happy again for a week or so, then bounce back.  Especially if things liven up around here soon."

"I think his situation's a little more complicated than that."

There was a pause, then Sirius sighed and shifted restlessly, turning to face Lupin a little more squarely.

"He gave me that _You don't understand_ look too, last night," he said patiently.  "Remus, you don't seriously think he's a bent sickle, do you?  I mean - in the hundred years since it's been legalised, how many wizards like that have you met or even heard about?"

Lupin hesitated.  "Not many," he admitted.  "One, I think."

"Exactly.  Granted, I don't suppose there's been much research, but they must be even less common in our population than they are among the Muggles and that's what - supposedly ten percent of the Muggle population?  It must be a lot less with us.  If it wasn't we'd have died out, the community just isn't big enough to support that many non-breeders."

"Do you think most wizards would admit to such a thing?" Lupin asked, raising a brow.

"Maybe not," Sirius replied, shrugging.  "But the stigma can't be all that strong these days.  Tonks told me recently that it was even fashionable to swing both ways a few years ago."

"So what - you think it's just a phase with Harry and he'll get over it?  I mean, I know he's on a high road to nothing with Ron but if it's more than that …?"

There was a long pause.

"Let's put it this way," Sirius said finally.  "If it isn't a phase, he's going to have a very lonely life ahead of him, if I'm any judge of the matter.  Given the kind of life he's had so far, you'll have to excuse me if I prefer not to think of that."

There wasn't much Lupin could say to that and the two men fell silent again.

 

xXx

 

Harry sat in the window seat in his bedroom and watched it rain outside.

One of Voldemort's female supporters had a rare talent for weather-working and had been making full use of it for some months now.  The Death Eaters didn't know _exactly_ where Phoenix Lodge was, anymore than they could locate number twelve Grimmauld Place, for Dumbledore kept both properties hidden by virtue of Unplottable and Fidelius Charms, but they knew the general location and made sure that anyone living there got some fairly miserable weather.  The rainfall around Phoenix Lodge had been almost biblical on occasion; Sirius had more than once remarked that it was fortunate they didn't live on one of the more unpredictable flood plains in Somerset or they might have been in real trouble.

As it was, the garden was waterlogged and swampy and the constant drizzle or light rain had gone past the point where anyone of a melancholy disposition could watch it without becoming thoroughly depressed.  Most of the Order accepted it with varying degrees of resignation or annoyance.  Harry, who spent more time in this house than most, found the grey sky and endless dripping had a lowering effect on his spirits and while he would usually try to distract himself from it, today the continuing lethargy and unhappiness conspired to trap him.

With almost everyone gone, the house was cold.  It was late autumn in any case, he could have lit a fire, but even that was too much of an effort for him.  Instead Harry dragged a knitted blanket from his bed and curled up in it.  It was a peculiar article, all mismatched hand-knitted squares patched together by a more artistic hand and bordered with two inches of delicate crochet.  It had been a birthday present from four of the girls in the Order; the squares had been knitted by Hermione, Ginny Weasley and Luna Lovegood (which accounted for some being knobbly, some misshapen and some having odd motifs) and assembled into the blanket by Fleur Delacour.  Harry was still bemused that the four of them had got together to make it for him, but it was thick and warm and he appreciated the obvious affection that had gone into its construction, and even as he sat in the window seat in a depressive funk his fingers were gently caressing the whirling abstract patterns, uneven stitches and smooth crocheted loops.

"Can I come in?"

Harry's head jerked around sharply; Oliver Wood was standing in the doorway holding a mug in each hand.

"I brought you some tea," he said, gesturing cautiously with one of the mugs.

After a moment Harry began to unwind himself from the blanket a little and Oliver took this as an invitation.  He joined the younger man in the window seat and handed him his mug.  Harry took a sip and sighed with relief.

"Tea!  Thanks - I'm getting fed up of people shoving hot chocolate at me all the time."

Oliver grinned.  "Standard remedy for stress and upsets, Harry - did you not know that?"

"They must all think I'm a complete basket-case, then."  Harry paused.  "Well, maybe not Remus, but he has a thing about tea anyway."

"You've been a wee bit down lately," Oliver told him bluntly.  "It's not exactly a secret."

"And now they all know why," Harry mumbled.

"They don't _all_ know and the ones that do won't talk."  Oliver paused for a beat, then added, "And I made sure Weasley wouldn't find out.  I think probably the last thing you need right now is that great clod making a fuss."

"You're not wrong," Harry replied after a moment.  He leaned his head back against the wall.  "God - bad enough that he thinks last night was _funny_.  I couldn't take someone else looking at me like …."  He stopped himself from saying the name just in time.  "Never mind."

"I doubt anyone will give you a pasting for it," Oliver remarked, sipping his own tea.

"No, they'll pat me on the head and tell me it's just a phase instead," Harry said sourly.

"I can live with that," Oliver replied, shrugging.  "I couldn't live like they say Muggles do, afraid of getting beaten up for it."

It took Harry a moment to register what the older man had just said, then he blinked at him. 

"You?"

Oliver raised a brow.  "Me.  I thought you knew that."

Harry hadn't known, but then he remembered Oliver's reaction after he'd destroyed the succubus, saying that he knew and understood what had happened.  He flushed a little.

"Sorry, I didn't … I mean, I wasn't thinking straight the other night and - "

"You don't have to apologise, I don't broadcast it after all."  Oliver looked wry for a moment.  "I'm an only child and my parents wouldn't take it well."

"That's part of the problem, isn't it?" Harry remarked morbidly.  "Family expectations."

"Not for you, surely?"

"I've got a funny relationship with Sirius," he explained.  "I reckon there's still a bit a guilt there about my mum and dad, because he's got this ambition to see me married with kids."

"It's your life, Harry," Oliver told him gently.

"Such as it is."  Harry didn't think he needed to add Voldemort to his current depression, though, and he resolutely turned his thoughts away from the Dark wizard.  "Oliver …."

"Yes?"

Harry felt his face heat up again, but he _had_ to ask.  "You're … I mean, you seem pretty, well, _single_.  Do you …?"

"Not currently."  Oliver took a long swallow of tea and looked out of the window for a moment.  When he turned back to Harry, his expression was rueful.  "There have been a couple - a chap who used to work for Puddlemere and another - but nothing long-term.  You could say I suffer from your problem."

"Eh?"  Harry gave him a cock-eyed look.  "What do you mean?"

"The Weasley Factor," Oliver elaborated.

"Oh.  Oh!"  Harry looked surprised.  "You mean - wow.  Which one?"  The six Weasley boys flashed in front of his eyes, one after the other, and he couldn't help a grin.  "Bill's pretty good-looking."

"Oh aye, but he's got a roving eye and a girl in every port."  Oliver returned the grin.  "And Charlie's a wee bit domesticated, even if he does raise dragons, don't you think?"

"But that leaves …."  Harry stared at him, unable to hide his dismay.  "Please tell me you fancy the twins."

Oliver grimaced.  "I'm no masochist!"

"But Oliver!"

"He's not just a stuffed shirt in horn-rims, Harry."

"He's an insufferable prat is what he is," Harry told him flatly. 

"Something he shares with his youngest brother, then," Oliver retorted lightly, and raised an amused brow at Harry's glare.  "Ah, you don't know him as well as I do."

Harry sat back, staring at him.

"You do know the Order won't allow him anywhere near me, don't you?" he said.  "He's not allowed in this house or at Grimmauld Place at all, because they can't be a hundred percent certain that Fudge and his cronies didn't mess with his head.  He's a risk, Oliver, and all because he was too busy sucking up to people in power to listen to what his family and friends were telling him."  He paused to take a sip of his tea, then added deliberately, "And he's straight.  God knows why Penny sticks with him, but she does."

"Do you want me to list the girls I've seen _your_ lad with recently?"

Harry flinched.  "I'm just _saying_.  Percy's not just a prat, he's a dodgy prat."

Oliver made a face.  "Well, it's not like I chose to fall for him.  Do you think I don't wish it was almost anyone else?  And it's not like it makes any difference, since he'll never know."

Harry put his mug to one side and hunched up under the blanket again.  That was the sticking point, wasn't it?  He didn't want Ron to know because he didn't want to deal with his friend's inevitable reaction, be that outrage or pity.  But to carry on as they were … to have to deal with all those feelings bottled up inside him … he didn't know if he could do it.  And to do that while watching Ron chase girls was beyond painful.

"They'd send him away if you asked."  Oliver was watching him closely.  "Talk to your godfather.  He's a bright lad – they could make use of him elsewhere in the Order and you wouldn't have to watch him screwing around."

"No."  Harry knew it must be madness, but he couldn't do that to Ron.  "He's my best mate.  I'm not having him sent away just because – because there's something the matter with me.  That's not fair to him."

"Maybe it's about time you started thinking about what's fair to you."

Harry wanted to laugh in Oliver's face.  Fair to _him?_   None of this crap was fair to him, but this was the life he had to lead.  Whimpering about fairness wouldn't make Voldemort go away or bring back the people who had already died.  It wouldn't change the prophecy.  And it wouldn't change how Ron saw Harry or how Harry felt about Ron.

"Fair is for other people," Harry muttered.

"Now that sounds like self-pity and I won't listen to it."

"Fine!" Harry flared at him.  "Fuck off then, it's not like I asked you to come preaching at me!"

"Fine!" Oliver retorted, in an equally offended tone.  "Give me back my tea, then!"

Harry stared at him in pop-eyed disbelief for a moment - and suddenly the absurdity of it hit him and within seconds they were both howling with laughter.  It took a good ten minutes for them to recover properly, but when he sat back and wiped his eyes on one of the many huge white handkerchiefs Mrs. Weasley insisted on giving him, Harry suddenly realised that he felt better than he had done in weeks.  Hot chocolate and Cheering Charms were all very well, but there was no substitute for a good laugh with a friend. 

Hard upon that thought was the realisation that he hadn't been able to laugh like that with Ron for a long time.

Oliver saw his face change and gave him a swift prod.  "Ah, none of that, Harry!  Don't spoil a good giggle so fast."

He was right.  For now at least, Harry made himself put aside his misery and just enjoy the lighter moment.  His problems would be back soon enough without him willingly inviting them in.

Then Oliver prodded him again with a sharp finger.

"Hey!"

"What's this?  Flabby muscles?"

"It's not like I get many chances to play Quidditch these days," Harry grumbled, slapping the poking finger away.

"True - we'll have to see if there's some way of getting you back in the air occasionally," Oliver said, tutting.  "It's no wonder you're brooding if you're not getting out and about a wee bit."

"You sound like Ron's mum, except she wants me kept safely indoors - _stop it,_ Oliver, I'm ticklish!"

Oliver chuckled and doubled his attack until Harry wailed in mingled laughter and protest.

Abruptly, he twisted away.  "Oliver, _no_."




He had to shove the older man off him, and quickly scrambled back into the corner of the window seat, pulling the blanket over his lap to hide an unwelcome reaction.  His face was scarlet.

Oliver rolled his eyes.  "Oh now, come _on!_   I've seen more than that already!"

"Yeah, great, bully for you," Harry muttered, mortified.

"Harry …!  What does it matter?  You're not going to pull the outraged virgin act on me now, are you?  Like I haven't seen it all before, in the showers after a good game, and not just from you!"

Harry was silent. 

"You're not twelve anymore," Oliver persisted, though a little tiredly.  "It happens to everyone - I'm surprised you haven't noticed.  And at least I can take it for the compliment it is."

God, could this day get any worse?  Harry drew his knees up and rested his forehead on them.  He would have given anything for a Time-Turner right then, to go back and start over the last few days again.

Oliver sighed and got up.  "I like you a lot, Harry, but you're hard work."

That stung and Harry looked up sharply.

"Why does everyone expect me to be all sweetness and light, dammit?  I try, Oliver, I really do, but you try getting crapped on from every direction and see what that does for you!"

"I wasn't aware that accidentally turning you on was another way of crapping on you!" Oliver retorted.  "Excuse me!"

"Oliver!  Oh, for - I didn't mean it like that!  You know I didn't!"

"So get a grip, Potter!  I tickled you and you got a stiffy - it's not gang-rape!  If I'd been Weasley you'd have been all over me like House-elves at a laundry party."

"Don't bet on it," Harry retorted angrily.  "Ron'd just laugh and make a crack about me polishing my broom more often - like that isn't already the only action I ever see."

Oliver's brows went up.  "What - no sweaty tangles with that Ravenclaw Seeker?  What was her name, Chang?"

"No," Harry said irritably, glaring out of the window.

The other man sat down in window seat again.  "I was joking about the outraged virgin act, you know."

"Not funny, Oliver."

"Seriously, Harry?  Has no one ever tried to sully your virtue for you?"

"No one I fancied trying it with."

"Ah."

"Yeah.  That puts the other night in a bit more perspective, doesn't it?" Harry said bitterly, and he turned look blindly out of the window.  It was, he thought, just typical of the pattern of his whole life that he should lose his virginity to a succubus.

Oliver touched his knee lightly; when Harry looked at him, he was wearing a sad little smile. 

"Could be worse, Harry, believe me.  At least you _thought_ it was Weasley at the time."

"How is that better?" Harry said sullenly.

"I knew who I was doing it with and I've wished since that I hadn't."

Harry's curiosity enlivened him enough to ask, "Who?"

Oliver shook his head.  "No one you know.  A man on my team.  Turned out he played for both sides, if you take my meaning, and had a girl as well.  He walked when he'd had his fun, but he decided to have a bit of a laugh about it with his girl later and I had her on my back about it for months afterwards.  Letters, howlers, nasty little notes and hexes pushed under my door or left in my clothes in the changing rooms ….  She gave up eventually, but it added a certain wee something to the whole experience, you know?"

"No, but I can guess," Harry mumbled, more than a little horrified. 

It didn't take any stretch of the imagination to apply the situation to himself, with even more frightening results.  After all, he was The Boy Who Lived.  The world and its wife had a morbid fascination with everything connected with him.  Harry could just imagine what spin Rita Skeeter would put on his sexual preferences.

"Well, it's all done and in the past," Oliver said calmly.  "I won't make that mistake again."

"How can you know?" Harry asked, puzzled.

Oliver smiled.  "I'll make sure it's someone I know a wee bit better before I let him get my clothes off.  Try not to let my balls do the talking and all that."

"That might even work if it's not a succubus," Harry told him dryly, and was taken by surprise by a sudden yawn.

Oliver grabbed his knee and gave it a gentle shake.  "Go and have a lie down, Harry.  You're not recovered yet, you know."

"There's probably something I should be doing," Harry protested half-heartedly.

"There isn't," Oliver said, and he snorted.  "That's why they left me behind!  Now go on – I'll bring you another drink in a couple of hours."

 

xXx

 

Harry didn't really think he'd sleep, but it was several hours before he awoke again to find that the room was falling into shadows and Oliver was bending over him, squeezing his shoulder gently.

"Are th' all back?" he mumbled thickly.

"No – there was a message from Sirius.  There was some activity just as they were about to call the job off, so they'll be later returning than predicted."

Harry blinked myopically at Oliver, but could see nothing of his face without his glasses and more light.

"Means nothin' to me," he muttered, turning onto his back.  "Don't know where they went anyway."

"Doesn't matter, I think they just didn't want us to worry."  Oliver sat down on the edge of the bed, his hand resting lightly on Harry's stomach.  "How are you feeling now?"

"Like a succubus turned into my best friend and tried to suck my magic out through my dick two days ago," Harry said irritably.  He wasn't at his best when he first woke up, especially if he slept at an odd time.

He got the impression that Oliver was grinning at him.

"What would make you feel better?"

The problem with having only just woken up was that while his brain was telling him to say quite logical and sensible things - _I could eat, what's for dinner Oliver?_ \- there didn't seem to be a reliable connection with his mouth.

"A shag that won't kill me?" 

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, his brain caught up and Harry wished the bed would open up underneath him and suck him into the basement. 

Oliver laughed quietly.  "I might even be able to arrange that!"

"I didn't mean that!" Harry said quickly, appalled.

"No?  Now there's a pity!"

"Er … Oliver?"

Oliver's hand was still resting on his stomach, rubbing gently.  Harry's body was slowly catching up with the rest of him and liked the sensation only too much.  He grabbed the hand and held it still.

"Don't."

Oliver's fingers twisted to clasp his warmly.  "I've been thinking - maybe there's a way out for both of us."

"Oliver - "

"And maybe it's not what either of us was looking for - not ideal - but if you can't have the ideal, then maybe it's a fair second best.  What do you think?"

"I think I don't want a pity fuck," Harry told him.  Tact had never been his strong point.

"Neither do I," the other man said calmly.

"Then what's this?"

"It's called friendship with benefits, Harry, and it's what you do when you can't have or can't find the person you really want."

"Sounds pretty cold-blooded to me," Harry said, a little curtly.

"Only if you make it that way."  There was a pause.  Oliver's head tilted to one side as he looked at Harry.  "Maybe you're not attracted to me, though; that would be another matter.  Is that what it is, Harry?"

He could lie.  He could say that he felt no attraction for Oliver whatsoever and tell him to go away.  But if he did that, he would not only have to face Oliver later knowing that it had been a lie, but he would also still have to face Ron.  And that would be doubly bitter, knowing that Ron didn't want him, and knowing that he could have had something else – not a replacement, not a substitute, but comfort and release with someone who might not be exactly what he was looking for, but who was a friend and at least cared enough about him to give him this with no fear of more hurt and humiliation.

It wouldn't be the same.  But it might just make things easier to bear for a while.

"No, it's not that," he said.  "It's not that at all."

 

xXx

 

The others returned much later in the evening, as Harry and Oliver were cleaning up the kitchen after a much-delayed dinner.  One moment they were quietly puttering about the kitchen, drying plates and putting the kettle on the hob to boil, and the next they were surrounded by wet oilskin cloaks and noisy demands for tea.

Harry kept himself out of the centre of things by retreating to the range to swing a cauldron of soup over the light and rummaging in the cupboards for mugs, bowls and the tea caddy, while Oliver demanded news from them all while conjuring drying charms for their clothes.

He had thought that in the fuss he might even go unnoticed, but a heavy arm still clad in a damp robe landed across his shoulders.  Harry would have known that body and one-armed hug anywhere.

"Harry, mate, how are you feeling?" Ron demanded.

"I'm fine."  Harry hastened to get them off the subject of his health before it could go any further.  He knew he should pull away or try to slide unobtrusively out from under Ron's arm, but to his dismay he still didn't have the willpower, in spite of what had happened between him and Oliver earlier.  "Are you all right?  What happened?"

"We ran into a bit of excitement.  We were just giving it up as a bad job, when a bunch of them suddenly turned up." 

Ron smelled of rain, wet leaf mould – and spent curses.  He sounded entirely too cheerful about it all, but he was developing into another Sirius where the Order's more direct confrontations with the Death Eaters were concerned.  Unlike Harry, he hadn't outgrown his interest in becoming an Auror and when the war was over – if it went the way they were hoping – he had every intention of applying to become one.

Harry had given up that ambition some time ago.  He didn't find it attractive anymore, for a number of reasons.

"Well, at least you're not dead," he said, a little more sourly than he'd intended, but Ron only chuckled.

"Yeah, Hermione'd never forgive me, eh?"  He gave Harry a final rough, friendly squeeze and released him.  "I didn't have a chance to tell you earlier, but I got an owl from her.  She's on her way back from Bulgaria and she'll be stopping off here the day after tomorrow for a couple of days before she heads up to Hogwarts.  Well, not _here_ here, but The Burrow, but she said she'd drop in to see you too."

"Great," Harry said.  "Take the mugs and stuff over to the table for me, will you?"  He busied himself with the teapot, not wanting to look at Ron.

Hermione had owled Ron.  Not him.  And she was planning to stay at The Burrow, not here at Phoenix Lodge.  It didn't take a genius to work out what that might mean, especially as Ron had had an almost obsessive attachment to her since he was fifteen, no matter how much he played around with other girls when she wasn't around.

Harry made himself finish making the tea, slice bread, fill bowls with soup and charm cutlery from the drawers to the table.  And when he could finally avoid it no longer, he went to join the others and made himself take the empty seat next to Oliver instead of the one next to Ron that his feet so badly wanted to carry him to.  He tried to tell himself that he was closing the door on that particular, desperate, delusional wish, although at the back of his mind he knew that it wasn't going to be ignored that easily.  But he had to try, for his own sanity's sake and for the sake of Ron who, after all, had done nothing wrong and would have been miserable himself if he knew he was putting his best friend through such misery.

After a few minutes, under the cover of all the talk and noise of spoons on bowls, he felt Oliver squeezing his thigh comfortingly under the table and suddenly the tightness in his chest eased just a fraction.

At least he wasn't alone in all this.  That was something.

 **\- The End -**


End file.
